News

City Link – what happened?

Christmas is a tricky time for the fulfilment and carrier industry, and it’s not uncommon for some to buckle under the strain of the season. This is sadly what happened to City Link on Christmas Day when the company went into administration. Unsurprisingly, the timing was widely criticised for the impact it had on the vast number of employees who lost their jobs during the holidays but, sadly, escalating losses made its closure inevitable.

Biggest Headaches for E-commerce Retailers

Christmas is well and truly here for retailers. Many of you are coming to the end of the busiest trading period of the year. But, as ever, there are conflicting statistics about how the winter trading season is expected to go when we come to analyse the quarter in 2015.

What can e-commerce stores learn from retailers’ loyalty schemes?

The large supermarkets have been taking a bit of a bashing recently, in particular for their loyalty schemes. With Sainsbury’s slashing their Nectar card points and Morrisons launching an almost incomprehensible points scheme, it’s not a great time to be a food retailer.

Small Business Saturday

It was great to see Small Business Saturday return last weekend! The event provides a fantastic opportunity for the public to support local businesses and reminds us all of the importance of shopping local. Small Business Saturday was actually established by American Express in the USA before it made its way across the Atlantic. Although only in its second year in the UK, the tradition has been established for having the event take place on the first shopping Saturday in December.

Free delivery

Four in 10 online shoppers say that free delivery increases their likelihood of buying a product, making it the most powerful purchase driver. The next most popular purchase driver was financial rewards (35%) followed by customer reviews and feedback published on the website (34%).

Official launch of the Core Fulfilment Shopify application

We’re excited to announce that the Core Fulfilment Shopify application has officially launched! After months of building and testing we are now able to offer customers, hosting their website through Shopify, the ability to synchronise their store’s activity with our systems.

Amazon – pushing the online shopping boundaries

Alibaba

If you haven’t heard of Alibaba yet, there’s no doubt that you will in the very near future. The Chinese ecommerce business recently hit headlines after filing for an IPO in the US, entering the market with a record $25 billion initial public offering. Needless to say, businesses in the UK are now starting to stand up and take notice of Alibaba.

Ecommerce Expo 2014

We had a great time at the Ecommerce Expo 2014 at the Olympia stadium in London, speaking to loads of people – and lots of talk of Christmas! Our #jugglingtoomuch campaign was a great success with people being invited to use our new fulfilment Shopify app to order a free set of juggling balls.